Philosophy, politics and economics, or politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), is an
interdisciplinaryundergraduate or
postgraduatedegree which combines study from three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in PPE was the
University of Oxford in the 1920s.
In the 1980s, the
University of York went on to establish its own PPE degree based upon the Oxford model;
King's College London, the
University of Warwick, the
University of Manchester, and other British universities later followed. According to the
BBC, the Oxford PPE "dominate[s] public life" (in the UK).[10] It is now offered at several other leading colleges and universities around the world. More recently Warwick University and King’s College added a new degree under the name of PPL (Politics, Philosophy and Law) with the aim to bring an alternative to the more classical PPE degrees.
Philosophy, politics and economics was established as a degree course at the University of Oxford in the 1920s,[20] as a modern alternative to
classics (known as "
literae humaniores" or "greats" at Oxford) because it was thought as a more modern alternative for those entering the
civil service. It was thus initially known as "modern greats".[10][21] The first PPE students commenced their course in the autumn of 1921.[7] The regulation by which it was established is Statt. Tit. VI. Sect. 1 C; "the subject of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be the study of the structure, and the philosophical and economic principles, of Modern Society."[22] Initially it was compulsory to study all three subjects for all three years of the course, but in 1970 this requirement was relaxed, and since then students have been able to drop one subject after the first year – most do this, but a minority continue with all three.[7]
During the 1960s some students started to critique the course from a left-wing perspective, culminating in the publication of a pamphlet, The Poverty of PPE, in 1968, written by Trevor Pateman, who argued that it "gives no training in scholarship, only refining to a high degree of perfection the ability to write short dilettantish essays on the basis of very little knowledge: ideal training for the social engineer". The pamphlet advocated incorporating the study of sociology, anthropology and art, and to take on the aim of "assist(ing) the radicalisation and mobilisation of political opinion outside the university". In response, some minor changes were made, with influential leftist writers such as
Frantz Fanon and
Régis Debray being added to politics reading lists, but the core of the programme remained the same.[7]
Christopher Stray has pointed to the course as one reason for the gradual decline of the study of classics, as classicists in political life began to be edged out by those who had studied the modern greats.[23]
Dario Castiglione and Iain Hampsher-Monk have described the course as being fundamental to the development of political thought in the UK since it established a connection between politics and philosophy. Previously at Oxford, and for some time subsequently at Cambridge, politics had been taught only as a branch of modern history.[24]
Course material
The programme is rooted in the view that to understand social phenomena one must approach them from several complementary disciplinary directions and analytical frameworks. In this regard, the study of
philosophy is considered important because it both equips students with
meta-tools such as the ability to
reason rigorously and
logically, and facilitates
ethical reflection. The study of
politics is considered necessary because it acquaints students with the institutions that govern society and help solve
collective action problems. Finally, studying
economics is seen as vital in the modern world because political decisions often concern economic matters, and government decisions are often influenced by economic events. The vast majority of students at Oxford drop one of the three subjects for the second and third years of their course. Oxford now has more than 600 undergraduates studying the subject, admitting over 200 each year.[25]
Academic opinions
Oxford PPE graduate
Nick Cohen and former tutor Iain McLean consider the course's breadth important to its appeal, especially "because British society values generalists over specialists". Academic and
LabourpeerMaurice Glasman noted that "PPE combines the status of an elite university degree – PPE is the ultimate form of being good at school – with the stamp of a vocational course. It is perfect training for cabinet membership, and it gives you a view of life". However, he also noted that it had an orientation towards consensus politics and
technocracy.[7]
Geoffrey Evans, an Oxford fellow in politics and a senior tutor, critiques that the Oxford course's success and consequent over-demand is a self-perpetuating feature of those in front of and behind the scenes in national administration, in stating "all in all, it's how the class system works". In the current economic system, he bemoans the unavoidable inequalities besetting admissions and thereby enviable recruitment prospects of successful graduates. The argument itself intended as a
paternalistic ethical reflection on how governments and peoples can perpetuate
social stratification.[10]
Stewart Wood, a former adviser to
Ed Miliband who studied PPE at Oxford in the 1980s and taught politics there in the 1990s and 2000s, acknowledged that the programme has been slow to catch up with contemporary political developments, saying that "it does still feel like a course for people who are going to run the Raj in 1936... In the politics part of PPE, you can go three years without discussing a single contemporary public policy issue". He also stated that the structure of the course gave it a
centrist bias, due to the range of material covered: "...most students think, mistakenly, that the only way to do it justice is to take a centre position".[7]
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy (under the designation of "Philosophy, International Studies and Economics" abbreviated "PISE", more recently “Philosophy, International and Economic Studies”)
VU Amsterdam, Netherlands, Bachelor's Philosophy, Politics and Economics[196] at the John Stuart Mill College[197]
Erasmus University College, Netherlands, under the designation, Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science - Major in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) - and a Research Master in Philosophy and Economics. [198]
^'Hitchens, Christopher Eric', Who's Who; 2012, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012 ; online edn, January 2012
accessed 5 December 2014
^[1]Archived 2009-08-30 at the
Wayback Machine "Balliol was the birthplace of the modern degree of PPE in the 1920s. A. D. Lindsay, who subsequently became the master of the college, played a key role in the establishment of the degree and Balliol has long remained a major college for the study of PPE, and PPE has long been a major subject within Balliol."
^University of Oxford (1926) The Examination Statutes. together with the regulations of the boards of studies and boards of faculties for the academical year 1926-1927. Oxford: Clarendon Press; pp. 149=54
^Christopher Stray, Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities, and Society in England, 1830–1960. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiv, 336.
ISBN0-19-815013-X.
^Dario Castiglione and Iain Hampsher-Monk, The History of Political Thought in National Context. Cambridge University Press, 2001,
ISBN0-521-78234-1
^"The PPE Concentration". Dept. of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Archived from
the original on 3 April 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
Philosophy, politics and economics, or politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), is an
interdisciplinaryundergraduate or
postgraduatedegree which combines study from three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in PPE was the
University of Oxford in the 1920s.
In the 1980s, the
University of York went on to establish its own PPE degree based upon the Oxford model;
King's College London, the
University of Warwick, the
University of Manchester, and other British universities later followed. According to the
BBC, the Oxford PPE "dominate[s] public life" (in the UK).[10] It is now offered at several other leading colleges and universities around the world. More recently Warwick University and King’s College added a new degree under the name of PPL (Politics, Philosophy and Law) with the aim to bring an alternative to the more classical PPE degrees.
Philosophy, politics and economics was established as a degree course at the University of Oxford in the 1920s,[20] as a modern alternative to
classics (known as "
literae humaniores" or "greats" at Oxford) because it was thought as a more modern alternative for those entering the
civil service. It was thus initially known as "modern greats".[10][21] The first PPE students commenced their course in the autumn of 1921.[7] The regulation by which it was established is Statt. Tit. VI. Sect. 1 C; "the subject of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be the study of the structure, and the philosophical and economic principles, of Modern Society."[22] Initially it was compulsory to study all three subjects for all three years of the course, but in 1970 this requirement was relaxed, and since then students have been able to drop one subject after the first year – most do this, but a minority continue with all three.[7]
During the 1960s some students started to critique the course from a left-wing perspective, culminating in the publication of a pamphlet, The Poverty of PPE, in 1968, written by Trevor Pateman, who argued that it "gives no training in scholarship, only refining to a high degree of perfection the ability to write short dilettantish essays on the basis of very little knowledge: ideal training for the social engineer". The pamphlet advocated incorporating the study of sociology, anthropology and art, and to take on the aim of "assist(ing) the radicalisation and mobilisation of political opinion outside the university". In response, some minor changes were made, with influential leftist writers such as
Frantz Fanon and
Régis Debray being added to politics reading lists, but the core of the programme remained the same.[7]
Christopher Stray has pointed to the course as one reason for the gradual decline of the study of classics, as classicists in political life began to be edged out by those who had studied the modern greats.[23]
Dario Castiglione and Iain Hampsher-Monk have described the course as being fundamental to the development of political thought in the UK since it established a connection between politics and philosophy. Previously at Oxford, and for some time subsequently at Cambridge, politics had been taught only as a branch of modern history.[24]
Course material
The programme is rooted in the view that to understand social phenomena one must approach them from several complementary disciplinary directions and analytical frameworks. In this regard, the study of
philosophy is considered important because it both equips students with
meta-tools such as the ability to
reason rigorously and
logically, and facilitates
ethical reflection. The study of
politics is considered necessary because it acquaints students with the institutions that govern society and help solve
collective action problems. Finally, studying
economics is seen as vital in the modern world because political decisions often concern economic matters, and government decisions are often influenced by economic events. The vast majority of students at Oxford drop one of the three subjects for the second and third years of their course. Oxford now has more than 600 undergraduates studying the subject, admitting over 200 each year.[25]
Academic opinions
Oxford PPE graduate
Nick Cohen and former tutor Iain McLean consider the course's breadth important to its appeal, especially "because British society values generalists over specialists". Academic and
LabourpeerMaurice Glasman noted that "PPE combines the status of an elite university degree – PPE is the ultimate form of being good at school – with the stamp of a vocational course. It is perfect training for cabinet membership, and it gives you a view of life". However, he also noted that it had an orientation towards consensus politics and
technocracy.[7]
Geoffrey Evans, an Oxford fellow in politics and a senior tutor, critiques that the Oxford course's success and consequent over-demand is a self-perpetuating feature of those in front of and behind the scenes in national administration, in stating "all in all, it's how the class system works". In the current economic system, he bemoans the unavoidable inequalities besetting admissions and thereby enviable recruitment prospects of successful graduates. The argument itself intended as a
paternalistic ethical reflection on how governments and peoples can perpetuate
social stratification.[10]
Stewart Wood, a former adviser to
Ed Miliband who studied PPE at Oxford in the 1980s and taught politics there in the 1990s and 2000s, acknowledged that the programme has been slow to catch up with contemporary political developments, saying that "it does still feel like a course for people who are going to run the Raj in 1936... In the politics part of PPE, you can go three years without discussing a single contemporary public policy issue". He also stated that the structure of the course gave it a
centrist bias, due to the range of material covered: "...most students think, mistakenly, that the only way to do it justice is to take a centre position".[7]
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy (under the designation of "Philosophy, International Studies and Economics" abbreviated "PISE", more recently “Philosophy, International and Economic Studies”)
VU Amsterdam, Netherlands, Bachelor's Philosophy, Politics and Economics[196] at the John Stuart Mill College[197]
Erasmus University College, Netherlands, under the designation, Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science - Major in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) - and a Research Master in Philosophy and Economics. [198]
^'Hitchens, Christopher Eric', Who's Who; 2012, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012 ; online edn, January 2012
accessed 5 December 2014
^[1]Archived 2009-08-30 at the
Wayback Machine "Balliol was the birthplace of the modern degree of PPE in the 1920s. A. D. Lindsay, who subsequently became the master of the college, played a key role in the establishment of the degree and Balliol has long remained a major college for the study of PPE, and PPE has long been a major subject within Balliol."
^University of Oxford (1926) The Examination Statutes. together with the regulations of the boards of studies and boards of faculties for the academical year 1926-1927. Oxford: Clarendon Press; pp. 149=54
^Christopher Stray, Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities, and Society in England, 1830–1960. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiv, 336.
ISBN0-19-815013-X.
^Dario Castiglione and Iain Hampsher-Monk, The History of Political Thought in National Context. Cambridge University Press, 2001,
ISBN0-521-78234-1
^"The PPE Concentration". Dept. of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Archived from
the original on 3 April 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2011.